Here's an idea to save ourselves from ourselves

The recent anti-smoking advertising campaign that showed the irony of our 20-20 hindsight got it right. 

When we look back at commercials promoting cigarettes or see old video clips of doctors and professionals puffing away, trying to do their work and look cool with a dumb ol' cigarette hanging off their lip, well, we shake our head and ask ourselves, "How could they be so stupid?"

Well, let me toss this idea at you -- and I hope you are sitting down: Wouldn't it be great if 15 or 20 years down the road we see an old  Mountain Dew commercial from, oh, say, 2008, and we slap our foreheads and say, "How could they think we would have fallen for that?"

Pretty radical, eh? Or is it?

Now, I'm probably a little like you. I've heard and watched cliched stories about childhood obesity and the fattening of America on the tail end of the 5 o'clock news for years and they have pretty well rolled right over me, never making a dent. Then I recently heard a couple of statistics that, well, made a dent.     

  The Center for Disease Control estimates that 33 percent of the children born after the year 2000 will become diabetic in their lifetime. One in three. And that  number, shocking as it is, is even higher for Latino and African-American children, approaching 50 percent.

Now this isn't some high school science fair project or a fly-by-night university researcher doing a master's project that spits out this number. This is the Center for Disease Control (CDC, the nation's top think-thank for disease analysis and prevention.

Next, a study concluded back in 2001 but recently brushed off for public distribution, found that 21 percent of the population of Georgia -- now, this isn't a middle school in Georgia, or an obscure town in Georgia, but the whole dang cornbread-eatin' peach-lovin' state of Georgia -- is obese.

Of the two statistics, the first one worries me more. 

Me and you --  well, we are what we are. We are not exactly clay on the potter's wheel anymore, if you know what I mean. And, no, I'm not the picture of sinewy, six-pack-abs health. Ken, of Barbie fame, I am not; spongy, I am. But it doesn't take a weightlifter to figure out the single most obvious ingredient in the recipe of an obese youth is soda pop. There are -- and again I hope you are sitting down -- about 15 teaspoons of sugar in a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew. Somewhere around 13 or so in Pepsi. About half that in Vitamin Water (which is owned by Coca-Cola, mind you.) 

We've got to convince kids that walking around with a 64-ounce personal Thermos of sugar water is not going to be in their best interest. Type 2 Diabetes used to be called "adult onset diabetes" until so many kids starting getting it that the moniker no longer applied. Onset diabetes is generally preventable, so why not start preventing it?

In the United States, the average teen male drinks 868 cans of soda pop. In a year. One can a day can add up to 50 pounds of sugar -- that's like one leg of sugar. Soda consumption has passed both milk and bottled water. Milk! When's the last time you saw an exciting commercial for milk? Overall, Americans are consuming twice as much soda pop as they did 25 years ago. And they’re spending $54 billion a year on it.
Does your school have soda pop vending machines? There's a start. Every legislative session it seems like someone proposes restriction of junk food -- including sugar water -- in schools. "But we get x-number of pennies from each vending sale and we need the money and blah blah wah wah," comes the response.

And 33 percent of the next generation will find themselves looking back in regret.

Cola companies are often co-sponsors of school events and activities. Surely we have enough creativity to figure out other ways of getting money besides through the kidneys and pancreases of our children. Is sugar the only problem? Well, of course not. School lunch programs have long been dumping grounds for excess cheese, butter, overly refined grains and such. But Coke machines would be a good start, an easy fix.

Deep thinkers are looking at a myriad of reasons why American's in general are becoming thicker -- in the middle, I mean. Some suggest it is because of inadequate sleep. Sleep patterns have become less regular in the past 20 years and studies confirm that some hormones and other triggers for hunger and fat retention are affected by lack of sleep.

The size of portions has increased in the past 20 years. A medium drink at some outlets is now 32 ounces and small fries may not exist at some restaurants. Some point to smoking cessation as a cause -- those who give up smoking, which is happening with more regularity, often gain weight. Some claim that living in environments that are excessively cold or warm tends to burn calories, thus, living with air conditioning and ambient temperatures adds the pounds.

But despite these edgy findings, the same old thing we have been hearing for a generation now remain the two silver bullets of success: diet needs to managed and exercise needs to be increased.

With that said, then, I hope you're not sitting down.